There are decades of good quality research now which helps us understand how people are influenced, and what behaviour or language is most likely to influence them. With the ever-increasing focus on advisers having to present written recommendations and documents for clients, the words we choose to use matter more than ever before if we want people to follow our advice.

A lot of sales training in the past has focussed on words of course, but usually at a fairly superficial level. The “power phrase”, the “close”, the “open question”….and while they are all useful to some degree and somewhat effective in raising our conscious choice of words and phrases that influence during a discussion, words have potentially more power when written.

A written Statement Of Advice could be expected to be a document which a potential client re-visits several times. Perhaps not the full document of course, but we could expect the key sections relating to the summary and recommendations to be reviewed several times, and quite possible by several people. If we want people to follow our recommendations it makes sense to choose our words carefully in these areas in particular.

In this weeks Quick Tips video we discuss the power of the words we choose, and use a couple of examples to highlight the difference that they can make in how people consider our advice…

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